Nepenthes, known as tropical pitcher plants or monkey cups, is a genus of carnivorous plants.The genus comprises roughly 140 species, and numerous and many cultivated hybrids. They are mostly liana-forming plants of the Old World tropics, ranging from South China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines; westward to Madagascar and the Seychelles; southward to Australia and New Caledonia; and northward to India and Sri Lanka.